Reflections on being a Football Manager...

I've been playing the Championship Manager/Football Manager series for about fifteen years now. I am the definition of a loyal customer - someone who goes back for more each and every time. I can feel apathetic about the game, or even fed up of it, and yet when the next one comes out, I know I'll be buying it. All debate about whether that constitutes an addiction can be had elsewhere (and not involving me because I don't care!). The fact is, I know I'll get one, maybe two, good saves out of it each time it comes out. With FM2011, I had bashes with Manchester United, Annan Athletic, Zenit St. Petersburg and Inverness Caledonian Thistle. However, none of those saves fully captured my imagination this time round. Instead, my current save with Bromley in the Blue Square South will be the save I forever associate with FM11. Due to a computer virus, I haven't had enough time as yet to get far with this Bromley save, so I'm only in my second season, but I've never been so determined to get somewhere with a save. Taking a little break from the game, I feel compelled to share with my fellow FMers my reflections on what being a Football Manager player is like...

1) Football Manager is a hard game.

Yes, I know that's very simplistic. But it's also true. Most of the threads you get on these forums demonstrate how much people struggle. But, from a personal perspective, this is a damn hard thing to do, even with a big club. I've rarely experienced being sacked, largely because most of my saves don't get that far, but if I stick with this Bromley save, it wouldn't surprise me if it happened in the end. Ultimately, you're set targets, and then you find yourself woefully underqualified for achieving them. The old adage is mostly true - "it's your tactics". I work hard at my tactics. Sometimes very hard. Occasionally I see tactical decisions I've made pay off. I can literally see how my decisions benefitted the team. Sometimes I see my decisions work against me. Most of the time, I struggle to see how what I've done had any effect, whether good or bad. But I keep trying. As tactics have become a more and more important part of the game, so the game has become harder and harder to master. At the age of about 11 or 12, I kept Barnsley in the Premier League, which still feels like my biggest achievement, way back on CM97/98. But there was barely any tactical side to the game back then. I wouldn't fancy myself to keep Swansea up on FM12! So yes, FM is a hard game. Hard, and sometimes baffling. But I can't walk away from it because of that. Not while Bromley need me...

2) Defeat hurts more than winning feels good.

This won't be the case for everyone. But I bet there's a few people out there who can relate to this. I love winning. I always feel good when my team wins, no matter how it happens. On my Man Utd save, I recently romped to a 7-0 away win. Meanwhile, with Bromley, I only a few hours ago scraped a flukey 2-1 win. Basically, as both wins come with three points, I feel the same - damn chuffed. But defeat stays with me longer. With a win, I can't bring myself to feel like it's a sign of good things to come. With defeat, it always feels like doom and gloom. I've been on long runs where you can't buy a win and you start celebrating draws and it does make you wonder why you play the game. No amount of wins makes me feel a comparable level of positivity. Ultimately, the wins will never satisfy me to the same extent that defeat bothers me. The real problem is that I feel that I start from a position of certain defeat, and I am always fighting to avoid it. So a good draw or a win are occasional highs, while defeat is the natural order of things. This is less the case when managing big clubs, but then you're expected to win trophies and that's something I've never done in a big way with this game. And yet, despite all this, I enjoy the game as much as I ever did!

3) Being an adult has not made me a more mature player

I admit it. I'm a bit of a drama queen with FM. Not like that almost certainly fake Youtube video guy who destroys his computer. But if a sloppy backpass or a late, late goal sees goes against us, I do get cheesed off, to say the least. And I am known to show it. My Bromley team lost a home game 3-2 to Welling Utd, having been 2-1 up. Welling's two goals both came in stoppage time. I was furious. In that instance, I was furious with myself for a stupid tactical decisions that invited more pressure than we were under anyway. But the point is, as a teenager, I used to take defeat far better. I used to move on to the next match far better. To some degree, I think is because there was no match engine, and even when 2D came along, it didn't affect me too much. But with 3D, you see every mistake, every stupid pass, every goalkeeper with butter on his gloves, every striker more inclined to find the executive box in the stand than the back of the net. But I also think it's to do with the difference in lifestyle between teenagehood and adulthood. I had a busy life as a teenager, but nothing that mattered that much. Just school and playing football. But as an adult, your free time becomes much more valuable. I recently lost my job, but I've been in full employment since living university four years ago up until this month. Aside from an hour or two in the evening and maybe a bit longer in the weekend, you have less time to dedicate to the game. I wouldn't want to fill all my spare time with a computer game, so the time I do dedicate to it is quite precious. Or at least, it was before I lost my job! There was a very helpful user around here at one time (and may still be around) called Amaroq who told me I'd become a more relaxed and mature player as I got older. His point was that your growing maturity would be mirrored in how you approached the game. You'd start to see winning as bonus and enjoy it all the more when it came along. For me, it's been the complete opposite. I'm more frustrated by things than ever! But it won't stop me enjoying it.

4) Away games are the enemy.

This one's a bit irrational. I've always had reasonable away records and I am as prone as anyone to home defeats. But for some reason, I approach home games feeling like I know what I should do beforehand, while away games make me feel powerless. There's no more tense feeling than being away from home and being a goal up or perhaps level with a team against whom a draw would be a good result, and waiting for that final whistle. Being a couple of goals down away from home is horrible because you know you almost certainly don't have it in you to turn it around. If you go for it, you'll end up losing by three or four goals. I go into every away game thinking "if I can just scrape a draw I'll be happy". Why can't every game be at home?

5) The AI managers have access to secret instructions that I don't have

Conspiracy theory! It's okay, I don't really believe this one. It's just a feeling I get from playing the game. The reason why it sometimes feels like this is simple. In almost all my matches the opposition will do something and I will be sat there thinking "why can't my bunch of donkeys do that?!". The truth is that the answer to everything is there for you to discover. Tactics are key, and making you sure you have the right players is crucial too. But it does feel like the AI teams are able find a better recipe in terms of putting together a squad and a tactical setup that works. For me, it's about stabbing in the dark, looking for something that will work. I've been playing this game for a long time and I've never really found it. I probably never will. But as with everything else, I will continue to enjoy the search.

6) The game will forever capture my imagination.

If it didn't capture my imagination, this post wouldn't be happening. This is my final little reflection. All games, whatever type they are, ultimately aim to capture your imagination. I guess the more successful they are at doing this, the more profit the company will make. For anyone who combines a love of football with a cerebral, perhaps slightly nerdy character, this game was always going to be a must-have. For all the complaints it generates and the various bugs that have driven me nust over the years, my love affair is far from over. I'm having a late night tonight because I want to get as close as I can to then end of my second season with Bromley and see if we can't make the playoffs, which is the board's stated aim. I want to see if my young Irish striker who came for free at the start of the season after being released by Wigan will keep scoring goals by the bucketload. And when FM12 comes out, my mind and my imagination will probably overflow with ideas for brand new saves. And so the cycle will begin again...

Fantastic post Mike

I can relate to every word of that:D

Interesting you say you could take defeat better as a teenager as opposed to when you are older. If you mirror that with actual footballers, think about how youngsters can come in and just blaze in on the scene. When your younger you don't care as much or get bogged down in complexities, you just want to play and win and look forward to the next game. As you get older and more mature you can also analyse the game a lot more which can be both good & bad.

That is a very interesting point!

one of the best posts ive read in a loooong time.

Top post

Disagree that defeats stay with you longer than wins though - other way round for me. That big win, whether it's for promotion or the first cup, I go absolutely insane if I win. If I lose, I get on with it and aim for better next time.

Players stay with me forever - I can still remember some of my top signings on FM08

Brilliant read! And I think I know the former Irish, Wigan striker you're talking about. I signed him up for Bromley as well.

Great post! My feeling are much of the same. The game will never tire, despite how many downs it gives me!

Wow exactly the feeling I have, awesome post:thup:

Whoa I just started a save with bromley too, in my second season, got promoted in the 1st and now hopefully gona get a playoff spot in BSP

Great post

Im only 21 but i definitely get more irritated by the game now than when i was 14 or 15.

Great post

Im only 21 but i definitely get more irritated by the game now than when i was 14 or 15.

I get more irritated now, because I think with all my extra footballing knowledge gained over the years, I should be doing a lot better than I am, whereas back when I was playing CM3 or CM 00/01, I knew all the players but not how to make them play well. Now I feel I know all that and stuff still doesn't work!

Thanks to everyone for saying nice things about my post! I don't post very often these days so, in the absence of quantity, I try to make up for it with quality!

Disagree that defeats stay with you longer than wins though - other way round for me. That big win, whether it's for promotion or the first cup, I go absolutely insane if I win. If I lose, I get on with it and aim for better next time.

Generally I don't win enough for it to stay with me that much. Certainly I don't have a massive trophy haul to show for my years of FM. I did think there'd be a few people who differ from me and let go of defeat much easier than I do. Maybe it would be different if I was a better FMer.

Brilliant read! And I think I know the former Irish, Wigan striker you're talking about. I signed him up for Bromley as well.

That's quite a coincidence! I suppose I better not name him due to no player naming, although it wouldn't be that hard for anyone to figure out his identity if they wanted to.

Whoa I just started a save with bromley too, in my second season, got promoted in the 1st and now hopefully gona get a playoff spot in BSP

You're doing a lot better than me! I narrowly missed out on the playoffs in my first season. Currently 12th in December of my second season. The board are getting restless and we have the worst defence in the league, which I seem to be powerless to do anything about. I really want promotion so I'll stick with Bromley until I get sacked/a better job comes along.

I get more irritated now, because I think with all my extra footballing knowledge gained over the years, I should be doing a lot better than I am, whereas back when I was playing CM3 or CM 00/01, I knew all the players but not how to make them play well. Now I feel I know all that and stuff still doesn't work!

I do think the fact that tactics weren't a part of the game in the past has something to do with it. The game was a lot more random and arbitrary before you had to make any tactical inputs. Still, I think the teenage me would still have been a more relaxed FM player than the current me even if he had access to the tactical side of the game we have now.

i think that over the 15 years you're talking about, football itself has become a lot more tactical (certainly in England, in the EPL). We're seeing top managers now like Wenger, Mourinho, AVB who never had footballing careers - that was almost unheard of in the last generation. In influx of foreign players has brought in a lot more sophistication. Therefore, whilst its coincidence due to improving computer technology, the parallel developments in tactics in FM and tactics in football are quite appropriate, in my opinion.

If you can find the time and the inclination, you can really get on top of tactics in FM by immersing yourself in the Tactics forum. There are no longer 'cheat' tactics; you need to really become a RL tactic geek, but if you have the knowledge it does make a huge difference to your success as an FM manager.

i think that over the 15 years you're talking about, football itself has become a lot more tactical (certainly in England, in the EPL). We're seeing top managers now like Wenger, Mourinho, AVB who never had footballing careers - that was almost unheard of in the last generation. In influx of foreign players has brought in a lot more sophistication. Therefore, whilst its coincidence due to improving computer technology, the parallel developments in tactics in FM and tactics in football are quite appropriate, in my opinion.

If you can find the time and the inclination, you can really get on top of tactics in FM by immersing yourself in the Tactics forum. There are no longer 'cheat' tactics; you need to really become a RL tactic geek, but if you have the knowledge it does make a huge difference to your success as an FM manager.

That's true. I know Wenger create with developpers a lot of computer programs for tactics and analyse performance players, Capello also and surely a lot of managers.

And there are also managers who play at games like FM when they were little. For example, Laudrup (coach of Mallorca), Michel (coach of Getafe), Sanchez Flores (previous coach of Valencia and Atletico Madrid) and Luis Enrique (coach of Roma) were addicted to a manager football PC game when they are young. I'd not be surprised if Villas Boas had played at FM.

Don't often read all these reads but this is a good post, well written:thup:

I get more irritated now, because I think with all my extra footballing knowledge gained over the years, I should be doing a lot better than I am, whereas back when I was playing CM3 or CM 00/01, I knew all the players but not how to make them play well. Now I feel I know all that and stuff still doesn't work!

Yeah I'm the same I'm only 22 but like you said back when I was younger and back in the early days of this game series it was all a matter of signing that certain player and then you can have great success, now though you could have a team of top stars and it can still go against you and down hill. I might be the only person on this board that will say this but I can't get Man City anywhere near the title no matter how I try, but in the other sense I have had great success with teams like Fulham and Aston Villa!

As for the defeat thing that is true to! I could handle it better back in the day but now it stays with me for a while, back in the day I could lose 4-5 in a row and wouldn't be bothered now I'd lose it all and start again!

I'm currently 9 seasons into a Bromley save, in our 3rd season in the premier league! Don't expect too much from the board (i'm still at hayes lane) and when i ask for there help buying any player they say he is too big a target......fools! just won the FA Cup yet still not big enough for my board

When I watch football updates on Sky Sports News I always have one football fan's ear and one Football Manager's ear!

This is an excellent post and one I can fully identify with. Everything felt a bit same old, same old for me this time around, however I've just started a save starting in Uruguay and come to it after a break and instantly I'm loving it even though it's only preseason.

Point 2 is excellent. I am a very patient person in real life and very difficult to wind-up or annoy, but put me in front of FM and I become what the game would describe as short-tempered and confrontational. I do not take defeat well.

Mike7077, i couldn't agree more you. Great Post! I believe that all of us (who play the series since the time Bakayoko was a scoring goals machine) will understand this.

It's crazy how 12 years after playing this game for the first time, sometimes you still go to bed wondering what player you should sign in on the next window transfer. And the most important thing about this game since the beginning is that "capture of the imagination". I believe that all of us imagine ourselves yelling to the pitch or giving press conferences. Thanks for this fantastic post. I believe this sentence says it all: "But as an adult, your free time becomes much more valuable."

Point 2 is excellent. I am a very patient person in real life and very difficult to wind-up or annoy, but put me in front of FM and I become what the game would describe as short-tempered and confrontational. I do not take defeat well.

I can relate to this. In real life I don't really do anger and I don't wind-up easily, but FM transforms me into a temperamental ball of frustration. Anyone watching me would have a hard time believing I enjoy it. But I do.

I believe that all of us (who play the series since the time Bakayoko was a scoring goals machine) will understand this.

This made me chuckle. How I remember those days. I never signed Bakayoko, though. I also remember some guy called Oli (or something like that) who played for Real Betis and who was an absolute god. Not sure he did anything of note in real life.

Its a great post and so much of it i completely understand and agree with. Especially defeat hurting more! If i win im pretty happy, even more so if its a stoppage time winner (recently won one in the 95th minute of 2 minutes stoppage time), but a 5 game winning streak doesnt feel as strong as a 5 game losing streak where you just despair at your players!!!! I may only be 19 now as well, but i get more frustrated by defeats now as well, because when i lose i feel like ive just wasted my time getting frustrated at getting my arse kicked, when i should have been revising for a uni exam or something.

And the Ai and their secret tactics, i had to laugh, recently had a game against Brazil, when i saw their formation i burst out laughing and said to my (fairly disinterested) girlfriend that they didnt have a chance. On this game i generally stick to a 4-2-4 and it works a treat for me, but against brazil i didnt stand a chance. They seemed to be laying some obscure 4-2-2 (2DM and 2CM), yet what it meant was when i was on attack they had 6 players flooding the centre against 4, and then on attack the same 6 against 4, but all of a sudden their sidebacks burst down the flank to tear me open. I found a solution at half time with a diamond formation, i still lost 2-1, but i took so much pride in figuring out how to beat their crazy formation and dominating the second half

There's nothing worse than getting beat in the Champions League final. It actually ruins the rest of your night when it happens.

Great post...

here's how I see it (also as a fellow long-time CM/FM player)

1) Unfortunately I think it's still too easy overachieving... I've been DESPERATE for an actual challenge that would keep my busy and almost stuck in football's "no man's land" for longer than two seasons...

The AI is too dumb to give you a constant and long-term run for your money, no matter where you're managing.

I've started with a fictional club in Norwegian Tier 3, with NO players, and I ended up avoiding relegation with a squad entirely made of amateur free agents and veteran semi-pros... I'm sure I'd be able to eventually make it to the Norwegian Premier within 5 years, although the best and hardest part of the challenge has been completed already.

Moreso, tactics aren't THAT important once you're getting the morale dynamics right and you have good players.

As said already, AI teams stop being a serious threat only a couple of seasons into the save, so you can probably win with a couple of "red dots" too if they're still good enough

2) Totally agree here... and the more you win the less lenient you get with your players when they go through the usual run of poor performances/results.

The fact some defeats make no sense whatsoever is even more hurting... Nothing wrong with losing soundly to a clearly better team, but when your Quadruple-winning team loses 1-0 to Getafe or to Birmingham in a game they should and could have dominated, that's just ARGH!

3) Of course it hasn't!

At times the game gets so annoying and frustrating you'd really wish to pull a Crazy German Kid and smash the screen with a chair... whether you're 14 or 41 it's irrelevant...

4) Away games are tricky, but the actual bogey-fixtures are home games against relegation candidates... I can live with the odd away loss, even at not-so-dangerous opposition, but the awful 1-0 win, or 1-1 draw (or worse) while facing a team we'd play circles around is a whole different kind of annoyance.

5) Despite AI's glaring flaws, I do think AI managers have a bit of an unfair advantage sometimes... I can't explain otherwise the fact Top Clubs around Europe seem to always produce/find top-shelf newgens which my 20/20 Scouts have inexplicably overlooked and/or my top-notch academy wouldn't produce in 10 years (or in 20 reloads)

6) Agreed!

As much as I can get mad at FM, I can't stop coming back... There's always a "let's see..." factor that will keep me playing one more season, or start one more save.

Great post Mike.

I've got the same background as you. Started playing during the CM2 era and have been with the SI CM and FM series ever since.

Can certainly identify with a lot of what you've said.

I've been having a break from the game from time to time recently but I still feel the desire to play and I'll no doubt come back with the usual enthusiasm when FM12 comes out. The addiction never leaves you. Once an FMer, always an FMer!

There's nothing worse than getting beat in the Champions League final. It actually ruins the rest of your night when it happens.

Gonzalo Higuain. I hate him. I hate him so much

Great post Mike. Sums up so much for me, particularly number 2!

Great thread!! Number 2 describes how i feel so perfectly. I went a season unbeaten, couldnt tell you when it was 5/6 seasons ago maybe, doesnt really stick in the mind, but what does is losing last seasons scottish cup final and missing out on winning 4 trophies in one season for the first time, and the 3 losses out of 6 games so far this season, i had to turn it off last night as i was getting very annoyed at my own mistakes.

Winning in Fm means little, losing is like the end of the bloody world, especially when your a successful team.

Wow one of the best post i've read on here in ages. Agree with some of points and refreshing to read someone post being trueful and not blaming the game for everything.

I'm playing long Term game, currently have two managers one been at Arsenal at start won 14 league titles in row and serveral Champions league and other trophies as well. Never managed season unbeaten came close lose second to last game couple season ago. But i find it exicting as now all existing Arsenal players are gone or retired, have got Van perise, Fabergas, Walcott and Wilshire on my coaching stuff helping me with new batch of youngsters put together.

With other manager it be a journeyman moving clubs and having success and failure along the way like getting couple clubs promoted from championship to primiership. managing Shaktar and wining leagues and cups. Getting relegated with Roma after joining them on bad run. managing Juventus to league and cup wins and European Cup, then leaving to do manager lower club getting mid table before now with Inter after they offered me job and trying build them into title winning team. Looking to try go Spain after with this manager.

But as you say sometimes rest from game i find has helped me enjoy more, and fact i play a lot less now then used to also keeps me enjoying it.

Also remember the wierd name players that was not real in previous CM that would become superstars and bang in loads of goals. They were fun days Ha Ha.

But do have Striker called Panda at moment

Agree with points 1 and 2...point 2 is especially annoying if you are favorites to win and yet lose to some lowly, relegation-threatened opponent whom your team is expected to thrash.

A bit of a necromancy thread, but since someone else did it before me I`ll follow

I definitely recognize myself in getting frustrated, annoyed and whatnot whenever I get defeated (or worse, get on a losing spree) and I have had times where I was genuinely happy that I beat another team in a clash. Happy that my tactics worked, or frustrated that my tactics did not work. Getting all fed up after seeing the 2-goal margin disappear and ending up taking a 3rd one in extra time - yeah, I know that just as well.

But what I truly love is not the big clubs; it`s the lower league management. Taking a team from rock bottom to higher grounds. I always took Hayes & Yeading from the BSS to higher grounds and even ended up with them in the Championship at some point, but lack of time generally limits me to get that far now. Still, it was great fun to actually see them gaining promotion to the BSP a little while ago in the real world. How odd, to become so happy about a team you only know through a game getting promoted in real life

Another thing I truly love is to find that youngster going through the ranks and making it big. The 16 year old kid who pops up in your youth system and you developing him all the way to the first team, subbing him in for the first time in his life on the pitch in the first team. Seeing how he becomes great, watching all the major teams out there declaring an interest in him and him declining them because this is his favorite team in the whole world. And that his manager is the best person he has ever met because he gave him the chance to make it to the first team.

Those things are what do the trick for me. That make things memorable even after that fictional youngster disappears, there will always be a secret place for him in your FM-branded heart.

3) Being an adult has not made me a more mature player

I genuinely laughed at this, purely because I know exactly what you mean. Last year I was getting vocal, my girlfriend at the time poked her head round as she thought there was an actual match on with how into it I was getting.